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Wondering about computer needs at small breweries

I'm a beer enthusiast and a homebrewer. I am also a very experienced computer professional with many years in my field, working for a variety of industries (mostly manufacturing, but also others). For a while I had ambitions of a career change into the brewery world, until I researched it a bit. I love beer and brewing, but I decided to do that for a living wouldn't be for me.

But the computer industry is also a pretty tough place right now, so I'm looking for a way to re-target my career and combine my love for brewing with my experience in business and computers. I'm trying to discover would there actually be a need. I'm thinking of taking my experience to the smaller brewers in my region and offering them an experienced consultant type person to help them. I know an individual brewery couldn't pay a bunch of money, but if I got enough of them on board, and floated between the breweries "part time", it might be workable.

So my question is do smaller regional micros need computer help enough to actually make this sort of idea workable? I could definitely show I knew enough about brewing, business and computers to hold my side of the bargin up, but is there a need for what I'd be offering?

Wow, I'm not sure what your computer skills are, but just a simple search on monster.com brings up about 10,000 % more computer related jobs than if you used the keyword brewing. I have a friend in a large metro area that is looking for network engineers, and can't find any! There have to be jobs out there in your field.

If you have programming (vis. basic, SAP, etc ) skills check out buschjobs.com, or coorsjobs.com or sabmiller.com or interbrew.com. The big boys have huge IT departments. Plus you get loads of free beer each month. Check the websites of the top 25 small breweries, and send your resume off seeing if they need help in their Info Systems department.

Chances are a smaller regional might need your skills but would be reluctant to share your skills with other breweries. You have the key to all of their sensitive data!

My advice would be to keep your love of brewing as a hobby, and get a real job where your skills are in demand! That way you will have lots of money to buy some great equipment and the best ingredients to have fun on your time off.